Earlier this year, Casta’s Rum Bar in Washington D.C. was prepping for sports fans to drop by on Super Bowl Sunday, an historically busy night for bars.
“There’s a ton of sports bars in the city,” explains Nikki Braden, vice president of hospitality for VERSUS Hospitality, the parent company for Casta’s Rum Bar. “We knew we were going to be competitive. We were looking at ways we can make the campaign more culturally relevant to our audience.” At the same time, they wanted to bring in business the night before the Super Bowl, which is usually low in revenue.
So, they launched a “Bad Bunny” look-a-like contest to take place the evening before Super Bowl LX, as a run-up to when the Puerto Rican musician (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) would take the stage at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Marketing the watch party the next day became a secondary focus and yet it was embedded into all promotions for the look-a-like contest. Mentions of “deals on beer + seltzer buckets and wings all night long” were included in the promotions.
Since most of their marketing is organic, Braden worked with the bar to launch an Instagram post for the look-a-like contest and the Super Bowl watch party. That post about the look-a-like contest got 4,000 shares along with articles in the local media—because it was that unique. This also tied into the next day’s festivities because all of the Bad Bunny dead ringers competed to receive a reserved table and bottle of tequila during the Super Bowl watch party.
“The look-a-like contest was insanely popular,” says Braden. “We had a line down the block. The guy who won did a full performance, singing with the mic, was super, super popular and a great revenue night for us. All it cost us was a bottle of tequila to give to the winner.”
The old adage about setting yourself apart from competitors has never been truer. But it’s also important to listen to your audience and give them what they want, including an activity, menu item, cocktail or fun promotion they likely can’t find anywhere else. “Our profitability is much higher when we have some sort of activation going on,” says Braden, adding that “what makes us really unique is culturally relevant activations and experiences.”
The biggest myth about marketing is that it costs a lot of money. But if you’re armed with creativity and have already put in some of the work, this is not necessarily true. VERSUS Equity relies heavily on social media to spread the news about their activations. But they also take it one step further through individual outreach to influencers, asking them to share the post and inviting them to attend. This casts a wider net.
“The one thing that almost all independent restaurants and bars get wrong is they don’t have the marketing foundation to support new campaigns and ideas,” says David “Rev” Ciancio, founder of Yeah! Management, and author of a free weekly newsletter with marketing tips.
Examples of building a foundation are putting your business on platforms like X, Facebook and Instagram as well as Yelp and TripAdvisor. Now you can engage more deeply with search marketing, which—through specific keywords, search-engine optimization and performance analysis—increases traffic to your website and social-media pages. “If all we’re doing is chasing shiny objects, it’s a fail all the time,” says Ciancio. “People want to be on TikTok. [But] are you optimized for local search?”
Boosting an Audience
An easy place to start boosting your audience is utilizing what’s called “listings management” and “search marketing.” If you think of the Internet like the Yellow Pages, then pertinent information about a business is published online. “Listings management is managing all of the black-and-white information, like name, address, hours of operation, what’s on your menu, parking, what kind of credit cards do you take, are you open for lunch and dinner, etc.,” explains Ciancio. This can be published on your website as well as on a Google listing and any of your social-media pages.
The idea is that a customer shouldn’t have to pick up the phone. Within just a few clicks any potential customer, or someone who’s already a fan, can have their questions answered, before they’ve even walked in the door. “60-70% of guests have a search in their journey,” says Ciancio. “Even if I’ve eaten at the restaurant a hundred times, I might be taking a friend that has celiac. Search is also a part of every diner’s journey.” ‘Search marketing’ is when your restaurant or bar pops up in a Google search, or on Apple Maps, Alexa or “food near me” searches within apps. “Doing that optimizes a restaurant for search,” says Ciancio. “While that might not sound the sexiest, and the most fun, it’s the one that works all the time in the background.”
It’s also crucial to add an FAQs page to your website that addresses any question a guest might ask, such as your address, if you have on-site parking and any gluten-free items. “It has to be structured in a way that AI can easily reach it,” explains Ciancio. “A human can read it but really, you’re structuring the response for AI.”
By providing all of this information upfront, you’re avoiding any missed opportunities for reservations or walk-ins—because there’s not a burning question that hasn’t been answered. Who wants to patronize a restaurant that doesn’t publish its menu online or its operating hours?
Reputation Management
Building on these tools is reputation management. This is when diners share experiences online, including on sites like Yelp. There’s a sneaky reason you want those reviews: your business will come up higher in search results. But there’s an art in asking customers to do this. “You can’t say ‘Leave us a review and we’ll give you a slice of cake,’” says Ciancio. “They will remove your access to manage that profile.” He suggests putting the proverbial ball in their court by providing a QR code or an email or text after the visit, which would then link to a reviews site.
It also doesn’t hurt to ask, using language like, ‘We love it when our guests share their thoughts on Google’ or ‘Would you be willing to share a Yelp review?’ suggests Ciancio.
Of course, first you need to have the customer’s email address. This can be obtained through an email marketing campaign where you are already sending news about your bar or restaurant.
“Independent restaurants grossly overlook the value of email marketing,” says Ciancio. “Most guests are happy to give you your email address. They don’t have a problem getting a weekly email from you. Email is the preferred method of communication from brand to consumers and it’s the easiest, fastest most scalable way to meet the most amount of people in an easy manner.”
If you use a template—such as ones already embedded into the online point-of-sale and management system Toast or even an email-marketing tool like Constant Contact or Mailchimp—it’s even easier to build an email newsletter. Ciancio suggests a hero image, call to action and contact information. “You have an email [ready] in less than 30 minutes,” he says. “Even if all [a restaurant] did was every week send out what I call a menu-item feature … they would crush their competitors.”
“You have to have your finger on the pulse of what’s trending,” says Braden, whether it’s a “Bad Bunny” look-a-like contest or letting customers know about a new menu launch or even a new chef.